Too Late?
by Holocron Coder
Summary: This is a Jacen and Tenel Ka romance. Something has happened to Jacen. Will he live? PG because of danger. Being safe here ;


Summary: I'm not giving a summary about this fanfic (It would give it away ;) ). All I'll say is that this is Jacen/ Tenel ka story. It is also set sometime after the book Lightsabers, but I don't know when, you decide when.  
  
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, only the plot (if another story is similar to this, I haven't read it!). They belong to Kevin J. Anderson, Lucasfilms, etc., etc. I fI owned them, this would probably be how they get together, but I don't own them. What luck ;).  
  
Too Late?  
  
Jacen focused on the small creature before him. About six inches tall with a shocking red exoskeleton, the insect waved its three pairs of antennae in front of it, trying to decipher the unusual feeling that Jacen was sending it through the Force. It was a rare female choonah stinger. Jacen had wanted one ever since he had seen a deceased one near the Jedi Academy. The sting of this rare praying mantis look-alike wasn't very potent, except in great quantities. The venom would slow the cardiovascular system of its intended victim. The scarlet insect crawled slowly forward, not sensing Jacen in the small clearing he was squatting in, which is what Jacen had intended. Suddenly, without any warning, Jacen felt a sharp pain lance through his leg. Jacen whirled around quickly and saw a sapphire copy of the female choonah stinger he had been trying to coax into his possession. A male choonah stinger, its venom much more potent. As Jacen began to feel sluggish from the venom, he realized that it must have stumbled upon him as he concentrated on the female. With that last thought, Jacen blacked out.  
  
Tenel Ka raced through the forest, thankful for the release from the confining quarters of the Jedi Academy. Master Skywalker had sent her looking for her close friend Jacen Solo, who had gone for a walk several hours ago and was long overdue for their evening lightsaber practice. She hadn't set out immediately, as Master Skywalker hadn't specified a time. She had finished her evening exercise before setting out. She traced his path of crushed foliage and twigs quite easily. Apparently Jacen had been searching for one particular creature. Suddenly she felt white hot searing pain come through her connection to the Force. Attached to it was the distinctive feeling of the person she was looking for, Jacen.  
"Jacen!" yelled Tenel Ka as she increased her speed dramatically, both through her physical abilities and her Force abilities. She ran for several minutes, following the pain still emanating from her friend. Rounding a corner in the brush, she found Jacen crumpled in a heap in the middle of a small clearing. Standing on top of him were two insectile creatures, small, but brightly colored. She quickly brushed them away through the Force, hurling them hundreds of feet through the forest. She stooped over Jacen, examining him for injuries. Large, angry areas of bright red covered his body. Realizing that Jacen needed immediately, Tenel Ka called out to her friends, Jaina and Lowbacca, and her Jedi master, Luke Skywalker. Having done this, she stripped off Jacen's shirt to further assess his injuries. His entire upper body was covered with the large, red sores, as was the rest of his visible body. She checked his status through the Force, and finding him alive, sat beside him, guarding him from further injury.  
Tenel Ka looked up, sensing Jaina, Lowie, and Master Skywalker coming through the foliage.  
"What happened?" asked Jaina in an fearful voice. Lowbacca roared a similar query. Jaina looked down at her twin brother, whom Tenel Ka had made as comfortable as possible in the middle of Yavin 4's jungle.  
"Jacen was stung by two large insects as I came to look for him," Tenel Ka explained. "I got rid of them when I came here."  
Master Skywalker knelt next to his unconscious nephew and gauged Jacen's injuries for himself. He closed his eyes and placed his hand on the young man's chest, probing for the source of the problem. When he opened his eyes, he picked up Jacen and motioned for the others to follow.  
"Jacen's body has a great deal of insect venom in him. We must get him to a medical center as soon as possible," Jacen's uncle stated, walking through the jungle toward the great temple.  
"Will Jacen be all right?" Tenel Ka asked, worried for her close friend.  
"I don't know for sure," her teacher replied, quickening his speed as he sent soothing thoughts to his nephew and student.  
Tenel Ka nodded slowly and followed a small distance behind her other two friends, who were still asking questions of Master Skywalker. Thoughts ran through her head, some logical, some irrational in the extreme, or so they seemed at first. What if Jacen was seriously handicapped because of the poison and could no longer be a Jedi? What if he acquired some form of amnesia and couldn't remember her? What if Jacen didn't survive? Tenel Ka shook her head, trying to dispel the fear building inside of her. Her stomach lurched in shocking realization as one last thought strayed into her mind: if she had gone to get Jacen immediately after Master Skywalker told her to, Jacen wouldn't have been in this situation.  
  
Tenel Ka paced outside the small infirmary, trembling with actual fear for her friend as the time went by. Jaina and Lowbacca exchanged surprised looks at this sudden change in their friends usually neutral demeanor. The young Dathomirian woman ignored them, intent only on her thoughts. Just as the tension outside the infirmary began to boil over, the door opened and Master Skywalker walked out.  
"Is Jacen all right?"  
"Will he be okay?"  
Jacen's uncle was bombarded by questions and roars as soon as he was noticed.  
"Calm down! Calm down!" Master Luke commanded, stunning the Jedi trainees into silence. "Jacen has slipped in to coma, but his life signs have stabilized."  
Master Skywalker held up his hand to halt the questions being formed by Jacen's close friends as he continued, "I don't know how to pull him out of the coma, as no medication seems to have any effect on the venom, not even the Force."  
A long silence hung in the air as the Jedi trainees digested this information. Master Skywalker ended the silence by recommending that they all get some rest.   
Tenel Ka glanced at a chronometer embedded in the hallway. It read well past midnight. Jacen's friends and his sister argued about not being able to sleep with Jacen like this.  
"You won't be able to help Jacen in any way while you're this high strung," their teacher stated.  
They reluctantly started to leave, but Tenel Ka stayed behind, worry apparent in her steel gray eyes. She looked at Master Skywalker pleadingly, wanting to be with Jacen in this time of need.  
The master Jedi nodded and replied, "You and Jacen have a strong bond with each other, stronger even then between him and his sister. He needs that bond now, and maybe you can help him out of this coma and back to health. I'm going to go tell his parents about this event."  
Tenel Ka thanked him and opened the door silently. She walked in and sat next to her friend in a chair occupied earlier by his uncle. Jacen appeared the same as when she first found him, except for the presence of various wires monitoring his condition. She took his hand and covered it with her own, willing him to heal. She remembered the thought she had had earlier that day. It was her fault that Jacen was like this. This was the second time she had failed to help him. Because of the loss of her arm, she had not succeeded in catching Jacen when he fell off Cloud City. Jacen had forgiven her, but she still had not forgiven herself. As she sat there, dwelling in her thoughts, the toll of the day began to take effect. She fell asleep thinking of all the things she could have done.   
  
She awoke the next morning to find Master Skywalker sitting on the other side of Jacen, thinking. She stretched her neck until the crick in her neck disappeared.  
"How did you sleep?" Master Skywalker asked, focusing on her.  
"Well..." Tenel Ka answered. "How is Jacen?"  
Her teacher lapsed into deep thought, deciding on how to word the news. He sat up and looked down at his nephew, then back to Tenel Ka.   
"Over the night, we found out the true extent of Jacen's injury," he replied. "We were told by medical personnel that Jacen's condition is worsening..."  
Tenel Ka's eyes widened in fear. Her mouth struggled to form the words the question that both she and Master Skywalker were thinking.  
"How... how... how bad is going to get before he gets better?" she asked, not wanting to think of the alternative ending to the poisoning.   
"Jacen might actually not get better," Luke Skywalker replied.  
Tenel Ka gasped in shock. Jacen? Not get better? He might die? She shook her head violently, not wanting to believe what she was hearing.  
"No!" she yelled as she stood in protest of reality. "Jacen can't die!"  
"Yes, he can," Master Skywalker stated. "We don't have any antidote for this poison, and he's going too fast for us to find one. He was injected with a large amount of venom, at least fifteen stings of it."  
Tenel Ka hadn't felt such a multitude of emotions in her life. She gawked at the reality that she might have to live without Jacen. His companionship, his friendship, even his jokes would all be gone, forever! Then the realization struck her harder than a blow from a Nightsister. She loved him! It had taken her so long to realize that the unknown emotion she felt whenever she was around him was love! Overwhelmed, Tenel Ka sat back down in her chair, staring at the person that affected her so greatly. A common solution quickly came to mind as she stared, sunk in thought.  
"Does bacta work?" she asked, hoping against hope that the doctors hadn't tried it yet.  
"No," Master Skywalker admitted quietly. "The poison is throughout his whole body, so the bacta can't help. And injecting bacta always kills the victims just as surely as one of the Emperor's plagues."  
Tenel Ka hung her head in quiet acceptance of fact. They sat there together, both searching for a solution to the lethal problem. Hours later, Luke finally got up and left, explaining that he needed to tell the others the news. Several minutes later, Tenel Ka heard a roar of despair, joined by a loud cry sounding like Jacen's twin sister. Almost immediately, the door was flung open and Jaina and Lowbacca stepped in. They just stared with realization at the prone form of their young friend laying on the medical table. They looked at the young Dathomirian warrior, their eyes begging for her to contradict what Luke had told them. She nodded her head, confirming his words. Lowie howled in renewed despair at this admition. Tears built up in Jaina's eyes before she threw herself into Tenel Ka's arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Tenel Ka comforted her grieving friend as much as she could, still dealing with the rejected, but inevitable loss approaching them.  
  
Tenel Ka looked up as Master Skywalker entered the small infirmary.   
"Where's Jaina and Lowie?" he asked as he sat down across from her on the other side of their mutual relation.  
"They wanted to be alone for a while," Tenel Ka replied quietly, subdued.  
"Yes... I don't blame them," Luke replied. He stood up after thinking for several minutes.  
"Do you want anything to eat?" he asked before he walked out of the door. "You haven't eaten all day."  
Tenel Ka looked at the wall chronometer. It read a little bit before 2000 hours. She shook her head dejectedly,  
Luke nodded in understanding before shutting the door behind him.   
Tenel Ka took Jacen's hand and held it tightly in her hand. Tears welled up in her eyes and she smiled as she thought of Jacen and his jokes. She had always enjoyed Jacen's jokes, no matter how bad it was.   
"I just wish that I laughed at least once at one of your jokes," she said aloud. "If you can hear me, I'm sorry for being so unemotional."  
A tear rolled down her cheek as she continued to talk to her dying friend.   
"If you somehow recover from this, I'll tell you how I feel about you..." she mumbled as she fell asleep, still holding Jacen's hand. "And I'm still sorry for not being able to help you on Cloud City.  
  
Tenel Ka awoke to find herself in a shimmering chamber. A person stood in front of her. One she thought she'd never see alive again.  
"Jacen!" she yelled to the brown haired young man standing on the other side of the chamber. She started to run toward him, but he held up his hand, motioning for her to stop. She looked at him in confusion.  
"I need to tell you this quickly Tenel Ka, if I'm to live-" he started, but was interrupted by his close female friend.  
"But you are alive!" she exclaimed, confused at his odd actions. He was standing before her, was he not?   
"No," he answered her thought. "I'm talking to you through the bond we share as friends and Jedi Knights, the Force."  
His friend stared at him with attention, understanding the matter at hand.  
"The only way to save me is inject bacta directly into my system," Jacen told Tenel Ka.  
"But a bacta injection is poisonous!" Tenel Ka stated.  
"Yes, it is," Jacen responded, "but it is the only way for me to live. Only the exact amount of bacta must be injected to counter the poison. Any more and I die of bacta poisoning."  
"How much is the exact amount?" Tenel Ka asked, prepared to help save her friend.  
"There's no way to tell..." Jacen replied. "Let the Force guide you."  
The young Dathomirian woman stared at the glittering floor of the Force connection.  
"I must severe the connection soon Tenel Ka," the image of her friend standing before her stated. "I want to tell you, that if I don't survive-"  
"But you will," Tenel Ka interjected. "Don't give up hope!"  
"I haven't, but just in case I don't, I want to tell you..." Jacen paused searching for the right words, "I love you, Tenel Ka."  
Tenel Ka's heart leapt in joy. She snapped into awareness as an alarm on Jacen's status monitor gave a shrill alarm. Confused and disoriented from her awakening, Tenel Ka checked the monitor. Jacen's pulse rate was rapidly slowing down!  
  
"Master Skywalker, I know how to help!"   
A hopeful Tenel Ka stood behind her Jedi teacher, who quickly turned around to listen.  
"We need to inject Jacen with bacta!" the young warrior stated.  
Master Skywalker's expression softened.  
"Tenel Ka," he addressed her, "you no bacta injection kills as quickly as any lethal poison."  
"Jacen told me when I was sleeping, through the Force," Tenel Ka added.  
Master Skywalker nodded with immediate understanding.  
"Let's do it. If anyone knows how to cure this insect poison, it's Jacen," Master Skywalker replied as he walked toward the infirmary, where Jacen's condition had been temporarily suspended through Force concentration by both Jaina and Lowbacca.  
"This is a fact," Tenel Ka stated, following behind him.  
They walked into the infirmary and told Jacen's sister and friend their plan.   
"How much do we inject?" Jaina asked, hope glinting in her and Lowbacca's eyes.  
"Jacen said to let the Force guide us," Tenel Ka replied, quickly retrieving the emergency bacta packs for injection.   
"Any idea around how much?" Skywalker asked.  
Shaking her head, Tenel Ka closed her eyes and tapped into the Force, pouring the bacta into a small jar. As if verbally told when to stop, she ceased pouring and opened her eyes. The jar held a little less than a large syringe worth, which was quickly put into one of the appropriate size. Master Skywalker quickly injected his nephew. The bacta left through the needle into Jacen's ill body.  
"We can only trust the Force," he replied.  
Everyone nodded in agreement, noticing that Jacen's condition returned to a safer level. They all slowly filed out of the room, leaving Tenel Ka to remain with the person who'd said he loved her. She reflected on what he had told her. Jacen returned her feelings!   
"Only now I have to tell him," she said aloud to herself. She smiled to herself as she sat there, waiting for Jacen to recover.  
  
A hand placed over hers awoke Tenel Ka from a brief nap she had drifted into. Jacen looked back at her with his Corellian brandy eyes, mouth askew in the trademark Solo grin.  
"Jacen!" Tenel Ka exclaimed, overwhelmed with joy at the recovery of her friend. She hugged him in an uncharacteristic overflow of emotion.  
"Nice to see you again Tenel Ka," Jacen responded, hugging her back.  
"Jacen, I'm sorry."  
"What for?" Jacen asked, confused.  
"If I hadn't waited to come get you when I was told to, you wouldn't have been hurt and-" the Dathomirian warrior was cut off when Jacen placed his hand over her mouth, shushing her.   
"And if I hadn't decided to go catch a choonah stinger it wouldn't of happened, or if I had noticed the male, or if I wasn't born," Jacen replied, taking his hand off Tenel Ka's mouth. "The blame could be carried on and on forever, so let's not bother."  
Tenel Ka pulled back and gave Jacen a serious stare.  
"Jacen?"  
"Yes?" the recovered young man responded weakly, still recovering.  
"Can I ask you a question?" Tenel Ka asked.  
"Sure," the newly recovered young man answered. "Just as long as it doesn't have to do with it 'being all your fault'."  
"It doesn't," Tenel Ka responded.  
"Then shoot," Jacen told her.  
"Did you mean what you told me earlier?" she asked, hoping he remembered even through his sickness.  
"Yes, I did," Jacen answered, suddenlyconcerned about his friend's reaction.  
Tenel Ka took Jacen's face between her hands and brought him close to hers. Their lips brushed in a tentative kiss, which soon blossomed into more. After almost a full minute, the two parted reluctantly, needing air. Jacen laid back, surprised.  
"Well, well," he said.  
"What?" Tenel Ka asked teasingly.  
"Maybe all the sickness was worth it after all," Jacen replied, smiling.  
"This is not a fact," Tenel Ka replied in a jokingly stern tone as she got up to tell Jaina, Lowbacca, and Master Luke about Jacen's recovery.  
  
  
3 years later  
  
A noose settled quietly around Jacen's shoulder's, effectively disabling him. Tenel Ka jumped down from a tall Dathomirian tree Jacen had stopped underneath for a breather.  
"Finally caught me, huh?" Jacen asked teasingly.  
"This is a fact," Tenel Ka, now his fiancee, replied.  
Tenel Ka had tracked down Jacen in the traditional Dathomirian marriage fashion. It had taken her almost a whole two weeks to track down and capture her elusive quarry.   
She released Jacen and took his hand in hers.  
"I now claim you, Jacen, as my husband," Tenel Ka stated, smiling in joy.  
"I know," Jacen responded.  
Jacen took Tenel Ka's only hand and looked toward the setting sun. They both knew that they'd be together for all time, and that they would face many opponents together, with the Force as their ally.  
  
  
  
What's you think? This was the second story I've finished. I'm thinking about writing other types of stories in different categories. Should I write or few romances? Or should I burn them all? ;)  
  



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